Has Vail Resorts Destroyed Skiing?

For more than a decade, the way ski is “consumed” has change drastically in North America, with the development of a business model share by two behemoths, Vail Resorts and Alterra that have litterally “forced” consumers to purchase months ahead of time season passes and have reinforced that habit by overpricing their daily pass rate to the point that they’ve raised their cost by 263% in Park City alone since 2011. 

Most remarkably, they’ve also made their passes valid at a large number of ski areas, thus creating an itinerant form of skiing never seen in the past and exacerbating lodging costs already unaffordable and never seen before crowding, hence the accusation of destructing skiing as portrayed in that video. 

In fact, the real reason behind customer dissatisfaction is ski resorts' overcrowding caused by both company and woeful incompetency from Vail Resorts that makes most of its money through huge and systematic economies of scale, preventing local management to act in unison with the interest of the community. Alterra, more decentralized mode of operation, does a better job at that. The question is obviously can the toothpaste be put back inside the tube, and will it get worst before it gets better. 

With limited beach heads in Switzerland by Vail Resorts (Andermatt-Sedrun and Crans-Montana ) will the this nefarious epidemic reach the Alps? That is of course the $64 million question! As the video says, the Vail Resorts - Alterra duopoly now controls the entire sport of skiing with packed trails, pricey meals, an empty wallet and super wealthy executives!